John Martin-Jones

Desert People was shot in 1965 in the Gibson Desert of the Australian Western Desert. There was still a handful of family groups perhaps three or four, living a nomadic hunter-food gatherer life, somewhere in the heart of the desert. Desert People tells simply of a day in the life of two families of the Western Desert. Djagamara and his family were filmed where they were found. They were camped by an unusually plentiful supply of water, a pool in...

A man of the Western Desert cuts a section of wood from a tree for making into a digging dish or wira. He starts by using the hand chopper he has made, but after a time changes to a metal axe. Back at camp he shapes the wood into a digging dish.

Two boys of the Western Desert make fire. They gather dry kangaroo dung, crumble it and put it in a cup of dry grass which they stuff into a crack in a dead log of wood. They rub a spear-thrower across the log and the friction ignites the kangaroo dung.

In 1964, communities from all over the Northern Territory sent performers to compete in the annual Eisteddfod - an amateur contest for choral groups, dancers and musicians. The host city of Darwin became a meeting place for men, women and children to show off their skills and culture. Tiwi Islanders and the Yolngu from far-off Yirrkala in Arnhem Land joined the children of Chinese-Australian citizens and inland cattle farmers, who, with the Centralian...

Two days in the life of three families of the Western Desert who were camped together by a large clay pan. Good rain had fallen some months ago, the clay pan is largely covered with water, and game and vegetable food is relatively plentiful. Men hunt emus from behind a hide. An emu is speared. Later we see an emu cooked and eaten. Women collect and grind mulga seed, collect grubs from the trunk of a gum tree and cook them and collect the fruit of...

A man of the Western Desert cooks a kangaroo according to Western Desert custom and then divides it into its various cuts using stone and wooden tools. Children get water from a well in a rocky area using wooden dishes.

A general introduction to the series "People of the Australian Western Desert", shot in 1965 with Djagamara and his family at Badjar and Minma and his family at Tika Tika and Yalara, in the Gibson Desert area of the Western Desert.

In 1965 and 1967, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies sponsored film trips by the then Commonwealth Film Unit to the Western Desert region of Australia. The object of these trips was to film the daily life of nomadic Aboriginal people living in the Gibson Desert of Central Australia. Although this land is one of the most arid regions of Australia, the people who lived there regarded it as rich in resources. This longform film series is...

A nomadic family of the Western Desert moves from Yalara camp to Tika Tika camp a days walk away. On the way they gather fruit, grass seed, lizards and a rabbit eared bandicoot. After making camp and getting water from a deep well, they cook some of the food. This is an edited sequence shot over several days. The family consisted of a man, two wives and four children. They were in fact living at Warburton Mission at this time and were taken out to...